A cold smile touched his lips. “Does it matter?”
“It might,” I said, unable to look away from the latticework of scars and wounds that covered his back and chest. Some wereclearly battle wounds, but others... others had the deliberate, patterned nature of torture.
Ashterion’s eyes held mine in the mirror as he reached for a clean tunic. “Curious about your enemy’s weaknesses?”
“Just trying to understand why someone with your power would let himself be carved up.”
Ashterion’s expression shifted, an emotion I couldn’t place crossing his face before it smoothed away. He turned toward me, the firelight casting his scarred torso in stark relief, shadows dancing across the ridges and valleys of old wounds.
“Why?” he asked, soft but edged. “Would it make you feel better about what’s happening to you? To know that I’ve suffered too?”
I didn’t answer right away, studying the constellation of suffering.
“No,” I finally said. “It wouldn’t make me feel better at all.”
A flash of bitterness cracked through his composure for a moment. He slipped the clean tunic over his head, covering the evidence of his pain.
“Good,” Ashterion said, returning to that cool, detached tone. “Because sympathy is wasted on monsters like me.”
He moved back to his chair, settling into it with that effortless grace that belied the damage beneath his clothes.
“Who did that to you?” I asked again, quieter now, the rage that had consumed me moments ago tempered by something I refused to acknowledge.
Ashterion’s gaze lifted to mine, a lethality dancing in those midnight-blue depths. For a moment, I thought he might not answer, might simply dismiss the question.
“Scars are collected over centuries,” he finally said. “Some from battle. Some from... other encounters.”
I refused to let him off so easily. “And the fresh ones?”
A muscle in his jaw twitched, the barest hint of tension before his expression smoothed once more. “You’re quite observant for a human.”
“And you’re quite evasive for someone who claims not to care what I think.”
His lips curved slightly. “Perhaps I simply find your curiosity amusing.”
Frustration burned through me again. “Fine. Keep your secrets.”
Ashterion smirked, but there was something else lurking beneath it. Something quieter. “Scars are stories, Isara.” His voice had lost that ever-present edge of mockery. “Some are still being written.”
The way he said it sent an unwelcome shiver down my spine.
“And which is it for you?” I asked. “A story, or unfinished?”
With an almost thoughtful sigh, he leaned forward. “Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
Wariness, or annoyance, perhaps, lined his face before he masked it again. “Why?”
I inhaled harshly, exhaling through my nose. “Because if your scars are unfinished, then I know you’re not untouchable.”
A pause. A fraction of a second where something shifted between us.
Ashterion chuckled. A quiet, dark sound. “You’re not wrong.” He leaned back again, tapping his fingers against the armrest. “But don’t mistake that for weakness.”
I didn’t. Not after what I’d seen.
Ashterion might bleed. Might suffer. Might have wounds that hadn’t yet healed. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous.
